Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Chicago church attended by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) issued a statement Sunday contending that coverage of his pastor’s inflammatory remarks amounted to character assassination and “an attack on … the history of the African American church.”

Obama distanced himself from inflammatory comments by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., retiring pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, after they circulated on YouTube last week and were played repeatedly by cable news channels.

Wright, condemning society as racist, said, “God [expletive] America” and referred to the “U.S. of KKK-A.”

The statement begins: “Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.”

The statement adds: “Trinity United Church of Christ’s ministry is inclusive and global.”

Neither Wright nor Obama was present at the church on Sunday.

Politico reporter Mike Allen says Trinity’s minister of communications, the Rev. Joan R. Harrell, provided Politico a copy of the statement. Politico’s story and the full text of the statement are here.

Comments:

Politico tries to soften Rev. Wright's message by saying he condemned “society” as racist? But it was America Wright condemned.

Trinity’s statement begins:

Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.

Trinity’s linking the criticisms of Wright to Dr. King’s assassination is shameless exploitation. So is it’s claim near the end of the statement that criticisms of Wright are “an attack on the legacy of the African American Church.”

I think most Americans, including many blacks, will see that.

And I doubt most people will be taken in by Trinity’s claim Wright’s being criticized because he’s “preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.”

We all know people who preach – and more important live – a social gospel on behalf of the oppressed without erupting into the anti-American and racists screeds Wright has.

Nowhere in the statement does Trinity try to explain how Sen. Obama could be a member of its congregation for almost 20 years and not know about pulpit pronouncements Wright’s made that most people recognize are anti-American and racist.

But that’s what millions of Americans want to know.

So far Obama hasn't answered that question. His silence is hurting him.

And so will Trinity's statement today, no matter how Dems and most of MSM try to spin it.

8
comments:

Anonymous
said...

I am sad to say the congregations of the "African American churches" in our country will not see through Trinity Church's claims. They are so used to whining about being "oppressed" that even honest, reasoned criticism is rejected as white racism. So long as our society allows itself be maligned by poseurs like Wright and other racist hate-mongers there will never be a coming together of the races. As I said in another comment, I am damned tired of being called a racist when I have done my very best to accept and empathize with my Black neighbors; and I made it a point to bring up my children according to the late Rev. King's dictum: the content of teir character not the color of their skin. I yield to no one in my belief in full equality of the races. Wright's character, alas, doesn't pass muster and if Obama spent twenty years as a member of Wright's congregation and didn't know what was being spewed from the pulpit, we certainly don't want him leading our nation. Only a psychotic loon could assert that our government purposely generated the AIDS virus to wipe out people of color.Tarheel Hawkeye

As usual I find myself in agreement with Tarheel Hawkeye. I just want to add that, as I see it, Trinity Church is complaining because the "good" reverend is being criticized for preaching "a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe." From what I can tell, the only gospel the "good" reverend is preaching is a gospel of hate, which is antithetical to Christian beliefs. If the "good" reverend thinks this is such a bad place to be, I would suggest that he might want to relocate to any number of African countries where, over the past fifteen years, there have been mini-holocausts by blacks on blacks. After all, nothing and no one is forcing the "good" reverend to stay here. Ah - but maybe America is not such a bad place after all.

If I hadn't followed the Duke case I would be screaming "WTF!?!?" in total shock over this video. Lots of white people are pretty unaware of black racism. Seeing it firsthand they're not gonna like it, and they're not gonna vote for it.

I'm actually inclined to believe that Obama was completely sincere in hiss first response to this, that he didn't think his church was all that controversial. Aside from Indonesia, he has spent his life in private schools, Harvard, South Side Chicago, and the University of Chicago. In summary, Academia and the ghetto are the only parts of America he really knows well, and he has genuinely never spent any time around anyone who would call bullshit on Wright.

He's probably sincerely puzzled as to what the fuss is about, and the "I apologize for anything controversial" thing isn't just Clintonian parsing; Obama now knows that he doesn't have the cultural knowledge to predict what parts of Wright's sermons the rest of America will react badly to until they do.